BY THE fall of 1944, the OSS payroll numbered over eleven thousand. Professors, scientists, philosophers, writers, journalists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, public relations experts, and actors crowded the cubicles on E Street. Secret agents had been spirited into every Nazi-occupied country. Supporting the Normandy invasion, the OSS infiltrated 523 agents into France to arm the resistance, radio back intelligence, and wreak havoc behind the lines. The London OSS staff forged papers and concocted cover stories for its spies and saboteurs that held up even against the Gestapo. Donovan had followed Overlord with his premier coup to date, espionage easing the way for Operation Anvil, the invasion of southern France. On August 15, 1944, General Alexander Patch’s Seventh Army swarmed ashore at the chic Riviera beaches between Toulon and Cannes, suffering light casualties in no small measure because of OSS’s advance work. Donovan’s agents, teamed with the French resistance, provided Patch’s forces with a virtual X ray of German defenses, coastal gun emplacements, minefields, roadblocks, airfields, even distinguishing real fortifications from false redoubts.
